Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 92646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Not exactly comforting.
I worry my bottom lip and ask the only question that has relevancy: “Do I get my own bathroom?”
Nova laughs. “Yes, Your Highness. The house has four and a half bathrooms.”
Whoa.
“Okay, okay, back to the important part. Tell me about the guys.” I wiggle my eyebrows like a creep. “And I mean tell me about the guys.
“Well,” she says, rinsing her rag way too slowly. “You’ve got Skaggs, the Baddie’s defenseman. Loves to read. Overall he’s pretty quiet and shy. Great guy. Terrible at putting away dishes. Also, I’ve literally seen him eat an entire Costco rotisserie chicken with his bare hands.”
“Ew.”
“Then there’s Cash,” she continues. “Pro-snowboarder who only lives in Texas during the summer. I think his parents live here? Barely around. Has a dog who travels with him during snow season. Cash is also a very nice guy… picture a surfer, though. Super chill. Uses words like gnarly and huzz.”
“Let me guess—he wears beanies?”
“Yes. And he has the most symmetrical face I’ve ever seen.”
“So…they’re both single?”
Nova pauses. “Painfully single.”
“And attractive?”
“Disgustingly.” She pauses. “So good-looking that on occasion, I can’t look them in the eye.”
I can’t decide if she’s fucking with me or not.
Nova doesn’t even crack a smile as she leans in to the camera, whisper-talking. “Poppy, I’m serious. Sometimes when I’m at the house, I have to pretend I have bad eyesight. It’s the only way to survive.”
“Instagram-model hot? Or real-life and in person hot?”
She lifts one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “Yes.”
Oh god.
“Do they wear shirts around the house?”
Say yes. Please say yes…
“Occasionally.”
“One more question: why would you do this to me?”
Nova doesn’t blink. “Because I love you. And because I believe you deserve to suffer in the most delicious way possible. Hot roommates. Built-in dog. Proximity to your best friend.”
“You left out the part where I combust from sexual frustration.”
Nova grins. “That’s on you, not part of the living arrangements.” Sighs. “Listen, think about it, that’s all I ask. It helps you out—it helps Luca out. The room will be available for a while—they’re all too lazy to go out and find someone to live there.”
I nod. “It will definitely work out while I find something permanent.”
Like a condo. Or cute little house of my own.
“Skaggs and Cash are low risk. Low drama. High abs.” My best friend levels me with a frustrated look. “Look. They’re good guys. It’s temporary. And you’ve lived with worse. Remember the roommate you had in Seattle who lost all her money online gambling?”
Yes, and Nova is a bitch to mention it.
The second our call ends and I’m alone, I open a web browser and type: Skaggs/Baddie/Hockey into the search bar with every intention of doing a deep dive.
I hit ENTER.
Immediately want to face-palm.
Because… oh no.
Hell no.
The image search results are a thirst trap grenade!
There are game shots—helmet on, mouth guard out, all jawline and determination. Sweat. Then there are the off-ice pics. A black-and-white training photo with his shirt riding up to reveal actual, honest-to-god six-pack abs.
A washboard.
A fundraising event pic with a baby on his hip and a shy, closed-mouth smile cute enough to make one’s ovaries explode.
I sit back in stunned silence.
“Low risk?” I whisper to myself. “Nova, you sneaky little liar.”
Skaggs—whose real name is Turner Hutton III—has dark blond, mussy hair and dark eyes. He looks self-conscious in nearly every photograph.
Nova called him shy.
This man looks like he’s been carved out of the finest Scandinavian marble, bare chest sprinkled with fine hair. Admittedly, he doesn’t look all that comfortable without his shirt on, the photo taken for a charity calendar.
Still. His bashful smile is awkward enough to be lethal.
And Nova has the gall to suggest I live with him?!
IS SHE INSANE?
I scroll. And scroll some more.
One picture has him holding a dog—a pug named Zippy, according to the caption—but now I’m imagining our wedding. There’s a slideshow involved.
I slap my laptop closed.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
I cannot live with this man.
poppy
. . .
There’s something mind-numbing about moving days that I will never get used to, no matter how times I’ve moved.
Maybe it’s the heat. Or the stress. Or the way I inevitably forget how heavy books are until I’ve packed two hundred of them into boxes labeled “Poppy’s brain fuel.”
This move is different because I’m not just hauling boxes halfway across the country—I’m hauling my entire life into a house I’ll be sharing with two men.
That’s right.
Little old me, living with two dudes.
In all my twenty-six years, I’ve never lived with a man before—platonically or otherwise. Not unless you count the summer I was a camp counselor and had to cohabitate in the same woods with a dozen other junior counselors, half of whom were male and all of whom smelled like Axe body spray.
One of them tried to impress me by eating a live cricket.
So no. I wouldn’t say I’m exactly prepared for this.